What do you do when attending Gen Con, the most important tabletop gaming conference in North America? Enjoy a trip, join with associates and creators, play video games that you just don’t usually get to or with new adventuring events, study upcoming releases, and, for a lot of, store for model new and lengthy sought merchandise. I attend Gen Con for all of that and picked up a incredible RPG haul in 2022. A of present and new, right here’s what went dwelling with me.

Let’s begin with a pre-show discover: Dragonlance Campaign Setting Companion: Age of Mortals for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition from Sovereign Press. On the way in which to Gen Con, I ended at The Great Escape in Louisville, Kentucky. They had a duplicate of Age of Mortals autographed in 2006 by designer and venture supervisor, Jamie Chambers. It was an ideal discover made higher when Jamie verified that it’s an genuine signature. Finding an autographed Dragonlance e book on the way in which to the Gen Con debut of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragons of Deceit recommended a superb begin to my 2022 expertise.

Attendance at the conference continues to broaden again to pre-Covid ranges. While there, I talked to a wide range of creators impressed with the expansion, and picked up fairly just a few books consequently. Tales of the RED: Street Stories for Cyberpunk Red from R. Talsorian Games Inc. This e book is 9 missions for the most recent version of their tabletop RPG. Full of attention-grabbing jobs, hooks, mooks, NPCs, maps, and prime tier paintings, it’s an ideal addition to Cyberpunk Red. I spoke to J Gray, the Cyberpunk RED Project Lead, about R. Talsorian’s free DLC content material. For new gaming choices, weapons, areas, NPCs, and extra, it’s value trying out their downloads web page to ramp up your marketing campaign.

Sticking with the cyberpunk theme for one more merchandise, let’s discuss Modern AGE: Cyberpunk Slice from Green Ronin Publishing. I interviewed Malcolm Sheppard and Troy Hewitt about this venture when it first dropped as a PDF. At the conference, that they had the print model so I needed to decide up a duplicate. During the dialog in regards to the e book, I stored calling the creator “Tom” and he (Malcolm) was too good to right me. He signed the e book “+2 SP for wit!” and I appreciated the enhance (and his title tag so I might notice I used to be misnaming him). That’s the type of interplay that may solely occur at a conference. Based on a wide range of cyberpunk classics, this e book codifies the principles you’ll must take Modern AGE over to cyberpunk. Great writing, nicely laid out with good paintings, this provides an ideal toolkit to cyberpunk your Modern AGE adventures.

One extra ‘punk RPG, this one MoonPunk from Wannabe Games (Try the quickstart here). At the Indie Game Developer Network (IGDN) booth, I talked to Alex Sprague as he worked there and he sold me on his and Jessica Geyer’s RPG. (In late 2021, I interviewed Jessica for one more venture, so this was a e book I wished to get and browse.) MoonPunk is about insurrection on the moon, a spot the place the shortage of gravity means you’ll be able to’t go away for Earth (your physique couldn’t deal with Earth’s gravity), the place fight is sluggish, the place excessive jumps are frequent, and you can also make a distinction. Using a Powered by the Apocalype variant, I used to be excited by seeing how they used the engine to inform their tales. MoonPunk was on my listing for one more purpose, I coated the venture when it Kickstarted in 2019, so it was cool to get the e book and discuss to Alex.

While I used to be on the sales space, I talked to ENNIE Award nominated creator, Craig Campbell. His e book, Good Strong Hands, deserved the nod from the ENNIE judges. He sport me a souvenir, CAPERS: The Coaster from NerdBurger Games. This coaster is a literal coaster, one that you just put your drink on and this one is… good. It’s not cardboard as most freebies are. It’s acrylic, crisply printed with nice edges. On the face is the CAPERS RPG emblem, on the again are three recipes for grownup drinks which is on theme for a sport about superpowered gangsters and vigilantes preventing by way of Prohibition. As a giveaway, it’s good and onbrand.

At the opposite finish of the IGDN sales space, Eric Bloat was setup. He shared the War for the Wasteland: Playtest Edition from Bloat Games with me. I’ve interviewed Eric a number of instances, performed in his sport, and attempt to advocate his tasks each time I can. Using the 24XX ruleset by Jason Tocci, this RPG creates a Mad Max post-apocalypse. 24XX makes use of d4 to d12 to symbolize your accidents or abilities (harm is a d4, a d6 is the default, larger cube for levels of talent). Roll in opposition to a static chart, the larger the outcome, the extra you accomplish. The zine has a Pallidium vibe to me. I don’t know if that’s simply me or if it was intentional with Eric and Phil Stone, however I dig it.

My essential buy at IGDN was Posthuman Pathways from Genesis of Legend Publishing. This was excessive on my listing to acquire. Not particularly Posthuman Pathways, although the RPG is nice and deserves its ENNIE recognition, however as a result of the product is a roleplaying pamphlet. I’m a fan of roleplaying pamphlets having launched my very own (right here). I’m at all times desirous to see pamphlets within the wild to see what materials they use and the way they compress their content material to match the actual property. Posthuman Pathways doesn’t disappoint. Presented as 5 quad-fold pamphlets in a slim field bundle, this sport is enjoyable and helpful to me as a bodily instance to tug from.

Over the Troll Bridge: Limited Playtest Edition from Creature Curation. All-ages RPGs are superior; I began freelancing for EN World specializing in all-ages content material. This all-ages RPG stands out for one easy truth: youngsters actively contributed to designing this RPG. Brian Colin is a creator with a superb resume together with Vast Grimm and World of Revilo (5e). For this venture, he introduced his youngsters in to design and make this their sport. The result’s an RPG about trolls doing what they have to to save lots of their metropolis with nice paintings. Created by kids and using the Down We Go system leads to a sport that feels authentically all-ages.

Randomly I bumped into Skylar Simmons, a web based buddy and creator. We exchanged some RPGs together with Tales from the Dungeon Issues 2 to five from Black Box Games. Let me state this, I got here out a lot better on this deal than he did as his zines are genuine, passionate merchandise that deserve extra consideration. These 5e zines have an old style really feel. They’re themed content material capsules with titles like Epic Weapons, Psychedelic, Secrets, and my favourite, Love, because it covers among the identical territory as my very own zines, Love’s Labour’s Liberated and Love’s Labour’s Liabilities. They are cool and the one purpose I’ve them is I bumped into Skylar at Gen Con. His subsequent RPG zine, Tales from the Dungeon #6 – Monsters, is dwell on Kickstarter by way of September 4, 2022 and I like to recommend checking it out.

Recently, Limitless Adventures crowdfunded Limitless Encounters vol.3. They’re working their means by way of the post-Kickstarter course of. However, I used to be in a position to get a late join the Kickstarter e book whereas on the present. The good a part of this, aside from getting the e book of 100 5e encounters so as to add to my assortment, is that they’re mailing it to me, so no want to hold it across the conference and again dwelling. In addition to choosing that up, we talked store discussing their fifth Evolution superhero sequence (5e ruleset) and what’s subsequent for it.

At the Indie Press Revolution (IPR) sales space, I grabbed just a few choices. ORUN, Post-Apotheosis Space Opera RPG and ORUN Quickstart from New Agenda Publishing. I’ve wished to select up the bodily model. Misha Bushyager, Jerry D. Grayson, Eloy Lasanta, Robert Jeffrey, and lots of extra deliver this house opera to life. The core e book is available in a slipcase and I wished to seize a duplicate on the conference to make sure I had a mint model to play.

In my “MAZES at MIDNIGHT” article, I went into element in regards to the MONSTERS & MAZES: fantasy roleplaying and MAZE Controller Screen from 9th Level Games so I’ll forego it right here. That said, I picked these merchandise up on the present, including one other zine and a GM display to my MAZES assortment.

Before Gen Con, I spoke to Henry Lopez in regards to the Arcanis 5e – Campaign Setting from Paradigm Concepts, Inc. The marketing campaign me as a result of it has a dwelling marketing campaign element that dates again to 2001. At the conference, we talked about their dwelling marketing campaign, the way it has survived a number of RPG engines (presently on 5e), and the way their fanbase drives the curiosity and course of their setting. As a 5e marketing campaign, fan interplay is vital so I used to be keen to listen to about their expertise.

Of course I grabbed the Crystal Castle commemorative Gen Con 2022 d6. While I’m pleased with the books that I grabbed on the conference, I missed numerous merchandise. Among them have been the aforementioned Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragons of Deceit. Another need was Shadows in Genzacon from Gooey Cube. I spoke to Alphinius Goo of Gooey Cube about their 5e homage to Gen Con together with some character pictures that resemble among the vital members of the GC household. The journey seemed enjoyable, the paintings even higher, and Alphinius’ salespersonship put it excessive for me.

Not to say these have been the one objects that caught my eye, however these are those I picked up. What did you decide up at Gen Con 2022?

Egg Embry attends conventions as a member of the press. I attended with John McGuire, learn his ideas on the con right here. He participates within the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, Noble Knight Games’ Affiliate Program, and is an Amazon Associate. These applications present promoting charges by linking to DriveThruRPG, Noble Knight Games, and Amazon.